Receptors in the human eye are only capable of detecting light having wavelengths between approximately 400 nanometers (nm) and 700 nm. These receptors are of three different types, including receptors for red (R) light, receptors for green (G) light and receptors for blue (B) light. The representation of an image based upon the intensity of red, blue and green color components is commonly referred to as RGB. If a single wavelength of light is observed, the relative responses of these three types of receptors allow us to discern what is commonly referred to as the color of the light. This phenomenon is extremely useful in color video processing because it enables generating a range of colors by adding together various proportions of light from just three wavelengths.
An image to be displayed is broken down into an array of picture elements or pixels to be displayed. Generally, each pixel displays a proportion of red, green and blue light depending on the signals to be displayed. Many image detecting devices include a sensor which will detect only one color component for each pixel. However, when rendering a color image, the two missing color components at each pixel have to be interpolated based upon color components of other pixels. If this process is not performed appropriately, the produced image quality will be degraded by various aberrations, such as highly visible zipper effects and false color artifacts. A zipper effect refers to abrupt and unnatural changes in intensity between neighboring pixels. False color artifacts correspond to dots or streaks of colors which do not exist in the original image.